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ChineseF— you Amtrak, you too, San Diego Padres, and anyone who looks like either of you
Had I got home sometime Wednesday evening, the title of this post would have been “Transit Oriented Baseball.” It was a day trip to San Diego, combining a baseball write-up with something most of us are interested in: urban transportation and planning. In short: Petco Park did a lot of things right.
Well, it ain’t happening. First off, the Padres lost against the visiting Atlanta Braves, 6-2. It was a pretty dull game, too. Read about it in the Union-Tribune. That’s about the only link I have the inclination to put together for this post. Was it a little too much to ask for the worst team in the NL West to pull out a win at home, and perhaps field a lineup of batters somewhere above .250.
But they have enough problems as it is.
The losing game — and a nasty sunburn — can be forgotten. But Amtrak cannot be forgotten. Nor forgiven.
I don’t have the bearings to go into the details, but let’s just say train 589, leaving at San Diego at 5:55 p.m., arrived at Los Angeles at 11:40 p.m. Draw your own conclusions.
I had some lovely Flickr-tastic photos to show, but those’ll be put on hold for a while.
I’ll be busy working on the state and Congress to strip out all of Amtrak’s funding now.
Discussion
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Please keep discussions civil: exercise Troll Controll.
[...] Metro Rider Takes Transit to the Ballgame…The Padres Ballgame [...]
My relatives live in San Diego, and occasionally take the train from L.A. Union Station to San Diego. It typically takes about 3.5 hours on the surfliner. The most recent time they did it, there was a maintenence truck left on the tracks (not sure what happened, but speculation was that the truck had broken down and the worker wasn’t able to get it off the tracks in time), so the train had to delay. The total station to station time for that trip was about 7 hours. Really annoyed my relatives, and we’ll how long before they elect to take amtrak again. Of course, those 3.5 or 7 hour time frames are just the station to station times. It takes another 30-45 minutes if you add in the time to get from my place to union station and Santa Fe Depot in San Diego to my relatives’ house. Thus making it a 4+ hour door-to-door trip at best.
Driving time is about 2 hours and 15 minutes door to door, without traffic.
Goes along with the rule-of-thumb I’ve discovered when using public transit: it takes about twice as long as it would if you drove.
The Surfliner is pretty goddamn fast until South Orange County, then it hits single tracking and tighter curves. Then it can hit 90 around Oceanside, but must slow down for the slow winding trek through the canyon and into San Diego.
I take it, and Metrolink, mostly between LA and Anaheim, and it takes 38 minutes (45 for Metrolink). Door-to-door from my job near the tar pits, it takes the same amount of time as it would driving in rush hour traffic (or even Saturday traffic, as I have discovered). It would be even faster is the subway went to Fairfax.
wow. congratulations, dude. I can’t tell if this is a real post or if you are just trolling for responses to your blog, but if it’s the second one, then I guess it worked.
if it’s the first, you make it sound as if you’ve never, ever encountered a problem on public transit ever before.
well, welcome to planet Earth. these things happen. they happen on Amtrak and they happen on the MTA. and while there’s no rule against being a whiny complainer, it’s your final statement that really gets me. you’re basically throwing Amtrak under a bus, if you’ll pardon the pun.
for all practical intents and purposes, Amtrak is public transportation. they get their money from the same government that hands it out to Metro and the muni bus lines. the only real difference is that Amtrak is a longer distance commute.
personally I think we need both Amtrak and the MTA, but what do I know?
A long time ago I was on Metrolink when the Surfliner hit a dude in Santa Fe Springs who was working on the tracks. We left Union Station at 5pm and didn’t get to Anaheim until 9PM.
It worked out great for me since I was able to study on the train and pass my calculus test the next day. Sucks for the BNSF contractor who was somehow struck. When I die I’ll be sure to send him a thank you note.
Well, public transportation is the best way to go, especially when mixing sports & drinking! Don’t get arrested for a DUI in San Diego.
san diego dui:
Or in my case, have a friend that pukes in my car after a Chargers game…
[...] follow up to “F— You Amtrak …”: I called 1-800-USA-RAIL, the national hotline, to apply for a refund for my trip on Pacific [...]
>I’ll be busy working on the state and Congress to strip out all of Amtrak’s funding now.
So what’s the solution? Go back to privately owned passenger trains?
As bad as Amtrak is, it still is better than nothing.